\n<\/p>\n
Four-hundred-and-forty people, mostly minors, have been arrested and 76 injured as a wave of school protests over overcrowded classes and teacher shortages spreads across France, officials say.<\/b><\/p>\n
The demonstrations began in Paris last week but have escalated to cities including Dijon, Lyon, Strasbourg, Lille and Marseille, with teenagers blockading their schools for days.<\/p>\n
Education Minister \u00c9douard Geffray said while some of the students’ demands were legitimate what worried him was the violence.<\/p>\n
He spoke of one young man having lost the use of part of his hand after firing a mortar firework. The dozens hurt since the start of protests included both pupils and staff, he said.<\/p>\n
Secondary school students’ union USL says as many as 400 of France’s 3,700 lyc\u00e9es for 15-18 year-olds have been blockaded and it has called for further action on Thursday, including at universities.<\/p>\n
Firefighters were called out in Strasbourg after bins were set alight outside a school, while in Dijon police used tear gas to disperse dozens of students, French media reported on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday alone, at least 10 teachers and several students were hurt, according to the education minister, who added that one teacher had been beaten up.<\/p>\n
Geffray singled out the radical left party La France Insoumise<\/i> (LFI – France Unbowed) for stirring up trouble. <\/p>\n
The LFI mayor of northern Paris suburb Seine-Saint-Denis, Bally Bagayoko, who has praised the protesters, has been criticised for suggesting that in some cases “violence can be legitimate” when a teenager is faced with riot police firing so-called “flashballs”. <\/p>\n
“Every time we try to express ourselves we get tear-gassed, they don’t try to understand us,” students at the Paul-\u00c9luard lyc\u00e9e in Saint-Denis told France Inter radio. “When we try to talk about our rights, they tear-gas us, they hit us.”<\/p>\n
For days students have blockaded the lyc\u00e9e in Saint-Denis, and part of the school gate has been torn down.<\/p>\n
Bagayoko was pictured on Monday dancing with protesting students outside the school and singing the Marseillaise with them, prompting Val\u00e9rie P\u00e9cresse, the conservative head of the \u00cele-de-France region that includes Paris, to demand he pays for some of the damage.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n